The Best of 29th New York African Diaspora International Film Festival will run from Jan. 14 - Jan. 17, 2021
Nationwide!
The Best of the New York African Diaspora International Film Festival 2021 will take place virtually in the entire USA, including Hawaii and Puerto Rico from January 14 - 17, 2022. The selection is comprised of 12 fiction and documentary films from 9 different countries. Tickets for this event are available through https://nyadiff.org
THE BEST OF ADIFF HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:
- The ADIFF NYC 2021 Opening Night film The Sleeping Negro by Skinner Myers (USA), the story of a young black man, simply identified as “Man,” must resolve the personal meaning of his blackness when his white boss orders him to commit fraud to benefit the corporation;
- The Public Award winner of the Best Film Directed by a Woman of Color, She Had a Dream (Tunisia) about a committed activist who speaks her mind. Ghofrane embodies Tunisia's current political upheaval. As a victim of racial discrimination, she decides to go into politics;
- Gala film A Son (Un Fils) (Tunisia) by Mehdi Barsaoui about 11 year old Aziz who needs a liver transplant after being seriously injured during a terrorist ambush while on holiday in 2011. At the hospital, a family secret will be revealed. A Son (Un Fils) stars Sami Bouajila, 2021 César Award Winner.
- Centerpiece film Loimata, The Sweetest Tears by Anna Marbrook (New Zealand), a poignant yet tender story of a family’s unconditional love for each other as they confront intergenerational trauma. They return to their homeland of Sāmoa in their commitment to heal, find their identity and becoming whole again.
THE BEST OF WILL ALSO PAY HOMAGE TO TWO IMPORTANT, RECENTLY LOST ARTISTS IN FILM - MENELIK SHABAZZ AND DAVID GULPILIL:
- David Gulpilil, Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu AM (c.1953 - 29 November 2021) the legendary indigenous Australian actor who earned international acclaim in Paul Hogan’s “Crocodile Dundee” and Rolf de Heer’s “Charlie’s Country” and "The Tracker," has died after a four-year battle with lung cancer. He was 68. The
Homage to David Gulpilil will feature the narrative feature The Tracker by Rolf de Heer (Australia), David Gulpilil has the job of pursuing The Fugitive - an aborigine who is suspected of murdering a white woman - as he leads three mounted policemen: The Fanatic, The Follower and also The Veteran across the outback; and documentary Gulpilil: One Red Blood by Darlene Johnson (Australia), an hour-long documentary on the life and career of actor David Gulpilil.
- Menelik Shabazz was born in Barbados in 1954 and died in Zimbabwe on June 28 2021. Menelik was a pioneer of Afro-British cinema his work started as early as 1982 with the film Blood Ah Goh Run, a film he made in response to the death of 13 young Black Youth in a house fire in London. The Homage to Menelik Shabazz will feature two documentaries -Time & Judgement (UK/Barbados) is an overview of the African Liberation Movement that spans a period of 400 hundred years; Catch a Fire tells the story of Deacon Paul Bogle, often described as a 19th century Malcom X. 30 years after the end of slavery in Jamaica, the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865 provoked outrage in Victorian Britain shaping race and land attitudes.
COMPLETE LINE-UP
BEST OF ADIFF NEW YORK 2021 AT A GLANCE
(David Gulpilil Homage) David Gulpilil: One Red Blood by Darlene Johnson (Australia)
(David Gulpilil Homage) The Tracker by Rolf De Heer (Australia)
Fighting For Respect: African Americans in WWI by Joanne Burke (USA)
Josephine Baker: Black Diva in a White Man’s World (+Q&A) by Annette von Wangenheim (France/Germany/USA)
Loimata, the Sweetest Tears (+Q&A) by Anna Marbrook (New Zealand)
Marighella (+Q&A) by Wagner Moura (Brazil)
(Menelik Shabazz Homage) Catch a Fire by Menelik Shabazz (Jamaica, UK)
(Menelik Shabazz Homage) Time and Judgement by Menelik Shabazz (Jamaica, UK)
She Had a Dream by Raja Amari (Tunisia)
The Sleeping Negro (+Q&A) by Skinner Myers (USA)
A Son (Un Fils) (+Q&A) by Mehdi Barsaoui (Tunisia)
We Are Zama Zama by Rosalind Morris (South Africa)
